Sunday, November 18, 2007

The Great Red Hook Iguana Caper

I look up to see a massive iguana on the roof of the building across the street.

Wha? How?

Crazy, right?

I cross the street to try for a closer shot and the guy calls out, "It's over here!"

At the other end of the building a guy holding a towel waves and walks toward the lizard. "My neighbor said she saw him. He's been missing for three days. I guess he can get out of the cage."

We watch as he slowly sneaks up on the Iguana. You may not know that lizards don't form bonds with owners the way other animals do, and Iguanas have a reputation for getting nasty with age. So it wasn't much of a surprise that the approach of the towel was met with much hissing and menacing. What was a surprise was when the iguana jumped from its perch, slammed that aluminum door gate with a thud and fell to the street. The owner tried to jump after him, hanging from the edge of the roof and no doubt suffering immediate regret. He appeared to make it down without injury but by then the iguana shot across the street directly at me and the other guy. It veered into the garbage can corral, its tail clanging and whapping the cans and the building's siding.

The guy, no doubt freaked at the prospect of this thing getting into his house, flushed it from the cans whereupon it fled down the sidewalk.

"Stay right there! Stay right there!" The sprinting owner screamed at some random passers by, hoping they'd block the lizard's path at the corner of the block. They stood dumbly but the tactic didn't work. The lizard, all flapping legs and flipping tail, hopped a small wall into a dirt parking lot.

Exciting as it was, I decided not to follow.

When in Red Hook, look up. Or better yet, don't. (That's the lizard's owner up there about to make the move with the towel.)